Inner Swamp,
Central Province.
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“Shut your damned mouth.”
Arthur spat the words between clenched teeth, his voice raw with pain yet steady with fury. Even broken, hanging in the grip of unseen monsters, he refused to bend. Refused to let whatever this thing was crawl any deeper into his mind.
Surrendering to a disembodied voice, an alien presence whispering inside his skull, would be worse than death.
The voice only laughed.
“Such a stubborn kid,” she purred, amused. “Just let me know when you change your mind… or if you’d rather join your friend in the afterlife.”
The laughter around him intensified, echoing and overlapping.
His body kept stretching slowly and mercilessly. At first it was pressure, a pulling at his limbs like someone testing the limits of a leather strap. Then came the real pain.
Arthur was desperate, thinking about anything that could pull himself off this situation. But his vision still hasn't returned to normal, and his greatsword is nowhere near his grasp.
He tried fighting off the pull, strengthening his core and pulling his limbs to brute force the opposing forces.
Unfortunately, all it did was worsen the damage.
His left shoulder popped, the joint slipping half out of place with a nauseating crack. His right hip followed, grinding as it was forced wider than human anatomy allowed.
He clenched his jaw until he tasted blood.
Is this how I'm trully gonna die?
"See? What did I tell you? Come on, don't waste your life here. Accept me and All this goes away."
Arthur couldn't even register her voice clearly. His mind was too foggy and everything hurted to the point of being numb.
"Ok, hear me..."
Her voice was cut short. Another came in, not of the girl's but lower and rougher.
“Speak thou my name, boy.”
The words vibrated through his skull, deeper than the girl’s mocking sweetness. This one carried weight, like rage buried under centuries of silence.
Arthur forced his eyes open through the haze of pain. There, through the twisted angle of his vision, his greatsword was rising.
It was lifted by something unseen.
His focus narrowed to a razor point, locking onto the blade.
The voice rumbled again:
“Thy kind didst slaughter me and didst forge my flesh into this most majestic weapon,” a snarling laugh did ripple through the air. “And yet, among mine former bearers, thou art the vilest of them all, casting thyself into this witless plight despite the might I bestow upon thee.”
The sword hummed, faint sparks crawling over its engraved surface.
“As much as I loathe thee, mankind, I shall not fester as a trophy for that witch’s thralls.”
Another surge of raw power throbbed through the air. “Utter thou my name, and bind thyself in covenant.”
Arthur’s breath hitched.
Witch? he thought, through the haze, even as his limbs were pulled toward tearing.
Which witch? The girl’s voice?
The pain tightened around him again, but the focus, the clarity, the pull toward the rising blade grew sharper still.
He knew better than to trust any unseen force whispering in his mind, but something moved.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
A clarity opened inside him, like a hidden corridor being unsealed. His thoughts aligned and words surfaced. Not his, yet they poured through him with the weight of instinct.
“O remnant of storm and ruin,
spirit carved from scales, reborn as steel.
Wake.
By will and blood, I break the old bindings.
If the thunder in your core still hungers, answer me.
I name you Aglio, Ancient Thunder Drake.
By this name, our pact is forged."
For a moment, even the monsters stretching his limbs fell silent.
Then the voice laughed with the deep, resonant amusement of a primordial being entertained by a mortal’s audacity.
“Thou givest me a name… Aglio.”
The name rolled across Arthur’s mind in an instant, like it's a stroke of fate.
“Unheard, yet fitting.”
Lightning flickered along the suspended blade.
“Thy pulse stirs my thunder. Thy will holds firm.”
Power slowly gathered.
“Take what storm I yet possess.”
“I take the name, and the oath.”
And then, the final words struck him like a bolt through the spine:
“By thunder’s rite… I bind to thee, Arthur Regus.”
Aglio Greatsword: Aspect of the Lightning Devourer, unlocked.
A single spark leapt from the blade.
Then another.
Then a dozen, erupting in every direction, thin, serpentine bolts snapping through the air like living things. They ricocheted off fallen trees, skittered across the mud, and danced along the invisible creatures restraining him.
Lightning struck his chest first,
then his limbs,
then his spine,
then everywhere at once.
Normally, he would’ve roared in pain as the power's source wasn't his personal mana. The lightning from the blade was wild, volatile, foreign to his body. Too much of it could melt armor, fry nerves, or stop his heart outright.
But this time it felt different.
The thunder didn’t blast him apart. It sank into him.
Heat surged through the fractures in his arm, weaving bone back into alignment. A cool numbness washed through his ruined leg, the pain dissolving as muscle reknit and tendon tightened. His torn joints slid back into place.
His skin prickled, stinging as burns sealed and bruises faded into nothing.
The lightning didn’t harm him; it healed him.
The Lightning Devourer’s power mended every break the swamp had carved into him, every tear, every bruise, and every fracture until he could breathe and see clearly again without agony tearing through his ribs.
The creatures holding him recoiled as sparks crawled across his armor, their grip faltering, terrified, confused, or simply unable to hold something becoming more storm than flesh.
He opened his eyes. They glowed faintly blue.
Aglio’s voice echoed inside him, low and satisfied: “Rise, pact-bearer.”
Lightning pooled at Arthur’s fingertips as he rose.
Several corpses lay scattered around him, charred, smoking husks of massive trolls, their flesh still crackling where the lightning arcs had torn through them.
Steam rose from the ground, and the air smelled of ozone and burned meat.
He moved toward his blade as the last sparks faded from the fallen monsters. The greatsword pulsed on the ground like a living heart of metal and storm.
When Arthur wrapped his fingers around the hilt, it felt lighter and better.
A strange satisfaction welled up in his chest. Holding the blade felt… right. More right than it ever had.
He turned toward the remaining enemies.
Some trolls froze, trembling while others tried to flee into the dark. A handful roared and lifted crude wooden hammers, preparing desperate swings.
He surged.
Lightning burst from his feet in a snap, propelling him forward faster than any human had a right to move. He cut through the first troll before it even realized he’d closed the distance.
The blade tore through its torso, lightning exploding outward and shredding its insides to ash.
Another stepped in with a hammer. Arthur sliced upward, bisecting it from hip to shoulder.
A third tried to run. He was on it in an instant, thrusting the blade through its spine. Lightning arced outward, burning a hole through its chest as it collapsed.
One by one, the oversized trolls fell. Seconds were all it took. Wails echoed through the swamp, each cut their final breath.
As more dead bodies piled, Arthur only grew stronger.
Each kill sent lightning snapping back into his body, sucking the life energy of those slain by the blade, and sending it directly into his veins.
His mana pool swelled, not fully restored, but enough to keep him going without clear physical strains.
A faint shape formed beside him, shimmering blue, its mane flickering with the same crackling arcs now dancing along his skin. He summoned the remnant of Aglio, his spectral mount, restored once more.
When he was ready to head back to the settlement, he smelled it; the Stalker captain who was responsible for all this in the first place.
He smiled and chased the smell. Your time is up!
He nudged Aglio’s spectral form forward, the mount gliding silently as Arthur followed the scent deeper into the murk. It didn’t take long.
The stench thickened.
There it was.
The Captain Stalker.
Crawling on two arms, dragging itself across the wet ground. Both its lower legs were gone, Arthur’s handiwork. The rhythm of its breath was broken, wheezing. Pathetic.
Yet still dangerous.
Something glinted near its claw, a purple orb, just like the one Tenha had given him the day before.
Arthur blinked and immediately checked Aglio’s internal “stash”; that curious pocket-dimension in the spectral steed where items were kept. Tenha’s orb was still there.
So this is a second one.
Before Arthur could act, the creature snatched the orb off the ground and shoved it into its maw.
It swallowed the orb, convulsing immediately. Black veins pulsed under its skin. A foul aura bled off it, dripping like tar into the muddy ground.
Arthur didn’t move.
Normally, he would’ve rushed in, cleaved it, and ended the transformation before it began.
But not this time, not when he had a new weapon, not when he wanted to see what Aglio could do.
He rested the greatsword on his shoulder, still chilling on his mount. Let’s test what I can and can’t do with this aspect I just unlocked.
Before he could think anything else, a voice slipped into his mind: “Hmmm, yeah, feed me more.”
…You can talk outside of the contract ritual?
“I can hear every thought that sparks in that skull of thine." Aglio continued, voice like distant thunder “Please me, pact-bearer… and I may bestow thee more aspects.”
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